[killJOY]

This is in the "media" category because it concerns who has been getting the Word Out. Lists alphabetized to minimize "ranking."
*WARNING: THIS LIST IS OPINIONATED*

Love.
1. Aaron. When I first googled peak oil in late 2003, the internetss was a desert. Then in 2004, PO.com popped up and I gave a little YELP of surprise. Aaron maintains a terse, ironic style that I like and cultivates a kind of conspicuous anonymity which is intriguing.

2. Bakhtiari. I adored him from the moment I first saw him in "End of Suburbia." "Gawd does set hiss own limits. And sometimes he likes to tesst uss. I believe such a tesst is coming very, very soon." He only publishes when he has something to say. You're always waiting for the next bit. Plus, he doesn't waste words.

3. Bartlett (Albert!). I relish -- absolutely relish -- the silence in my classroom after I've shown the DVD version of Arithmetic, Population and Energy. You can hear a pin drop -- and little hopes crashing and burning. But he's funny, too!

4. Campbell. Old duffers who know their shit are high on my list. He has dignity but is not afraid to blurt out terms like "flat-earth economists." His willingness to hint at worst-case scenarios in the ASPO newsletter has made him the object of intense vituperation, but he handles it gracefully (i.e. he keeps his mouth shut).

5. Darley. Long been freaking out about natural gas, and has been instrumental in getting lots of interviews posted with peak oil experts at the Post Carbon Institute.

6. Deffeyes. Ditto above sentence about "duffers." He's simply nuts about geology and makes you laugh. I wish he was my grampa.

7. Craig Bond Hatfield. Not many people know of his early efforts at getting word out about peak oil, but I wrote about him (under the link above).

8. Heinberg. He plays the fiddle and writes about Jesus.!

9. John Howe. Another duffer, from here in Maine. Invented Head tennis racket. Pioneered advanced ski design. Retired, then wrote an early book about the end of fossil fuels. Is obsessed with solar-powered tractors. Will talk your ear OFF. I'm going to be visiting him soon.

10. Matt Savinar. Proof that we lay persons can be well-informed and active in energy issues. I miss the LATOC media presentation early on when his site first came up featuring the Titanic & iceberg.

11. Sonia Shah. She comes across as "just" a bubbly girl, but is so well-informed and engaging that it's well-worth getting Crude Awakening (NOT "Crude Impact!") to see her. I love smart chicks. [Beside, Sharon Astyk might complain about the disproportionate number of penises in my list. She probably still will.]

HATE.

1. Bartlett (Roscoe).
Now that he has No Future in the House of Representatives, he shows his "concern" about our energy future by driving a Prius, voting against abortion rights, and populating the world with hundreds of grandchildren.

Do you KNOW what a Seventh-Day Adventist is? Any politician whose website profile opens with the statement that he he is not a politician is definitely a scammer.

2. Thom Hartmann.
A creep. Something about his using anxiety about climate change and energy depletion to claw his way to the top of the loony-librul talk radio circuit. I read his book "Last Days of Ancient Sunlight" at the urging of a friend and about fell out of my chair at the crackpot nature of his "solutions."

3. Kunstler. Good writer. Nice paintings. But an armchair thug. I still remember his blog entry (since removed from his site) advocating that the populace of Afghanistan be "carpet bombed back to the Stone Age." His rhetoric around the recent Lebanon/Israel conflict similarly veered toward the bellicose. As with Hartmann, I sense a whole room in his house devoted to housing his ego.

4. Rob Hopkins.
Sharon Astyk with a cock (perhaps). Very very sensitive human being. Sees oil dependency in terms befitting an AA group.

5. Mike Ruppert.
My first "link" into peak oil was an article by geologist Dale Allen Pfeiffer called Eating Fossil Fuels published at Ruppert's fromthewilderness.com. It is a BRILLIANT article (probably should have included Pfeiffer in "love" list above, but frig it, I'm too lazy to revise.)

So why do I hate Ruppert?
Crossing the Rubicon made me

How can I evaluate such claims? Can't.

6. Simmons.
Bush's buddy. Brilliant energy analyst, but I hate him. The ubiquity of his face in the media is a monumental testament to the ineffectual nature of peak oil awareness. Besides, do you know what a Mormon is? Is on tape saying the Iraq war "is about weapons of mass destruction." Imagine a Presidential ticket with Simmons' buddy Mitt Romney and Roscoe Bartlett, with Simmons in the cabinet.

Imagine the construction of homosexual-fueled thermodepolymerization plants.

[Grifter]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('killJOY', '6'). Simmons.
Bush's buddy. Brilliant energy analyst, but I hate him. The ubiquity of his face in the media is a monumental testament to the ineffectual nature of peak oil awareness. Besides, do you know what a Mormon is?
Is on tape saying the Iraq war "is about weapons of mass destruction." Imagine a Presidential ticket with Simmons' buddy Mitt Romney and Roscoe Bartlett, with Simmons in the cabinet.
Imagine the construction of homosexual-fueled thermodepolymerization plants.

[Ludi]

Thom Hartmann probably isn't having much of an impact. What little I've heard of him on AirAmerica, he probably isn't any loonier than I am (which is damning with faint praise, certainly).


I generally kind of like him.

[Twilight]

I would throw Michael T. Klare into the "good" ring. What makes him especially readable is he doesn't keep banging the oil drum, he has written about resource conflicts in general, potential future flashpoints for water wars, for example, which is an even more obscure subject that will grow in importance once the downslope gives way to cliff.

Similar thing with Bartlett (Albert), speaks and writes with the succinctness of a true educator.

Jean Laherrere too, though strictly speaking he hasn't got a single word out, too many stats and curves for any editor.

If Simmons is cast into the "evil" ring (I'm not sure that's fair), I would add Richard Heinberg for similar reasons. Although he has good grasp of the issues, the never fully articulated solutions he envisages (cultural renewal sounds like I can expect to get shot) would probably be as counter-productive as Simmons' techno-fix if applied coercively. Which, however noble the intentions, is in the small print of every magic bullet.

[eastbay]

They're all good, Killjoy. They're each simply addressing our common and coming disaster in their own way facet by facet. Much as we here are doing. Each in our own way.

[threadbear]

Love Ruppert, particularly on International Love a Nut day. I think you have to be a little nutso to understand what's going on, and he was a detective so he brings criminology into the political arena, as well as peak oil.

Kunstler--love/hate. Love his skewering of Suburbia, hate his politics.

Heinberg--Like, not love, not ready to commit. Good book though

Simmons-Waaayyyy too close to power for me to trust. His "the end is near, we have to do something about it", were he close to a pol like Jimmy Carter would be a good thing. Because he's close to the neo-cons, it comes across as a good reason to bomb the crap out of brown people and steal their stuff.

Aaron--Like.

Monte Quest--Love/hate. Love the man, hate the ego.

[NoLogos]

I like Ruppert too. His activism caught my attention, and most of what he says is true, AFAIK. I find listening to him easier than Alex Jones, who you didn't rate.

[killJOY]

There's many I've thought of later. Alex Jones isn't a peaker, that's why he's not here.

I hope I've at least given some of those I personally can't stand a fair shake (Simmons as "brilliant analyst," Kunstler as "good writer.")

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'W')hen he talked about WMD's in Iraq I'm pretty sure he meant the massive oil weapon that Saddam could use.

[Heineken]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Twilight', 'I') would throw Michael T. Klare into the "good" ring. What makes him especially readable is he doesn't keep banging the oil drum, he has written about resource conflicts in general, potential future flashpoints for water wars, for example, which is an even more obscure subject that will grow in importance once the downslope gives way to cliff.

[Tyler_JC]

KillJoy, you're a teacher? What do you teach?

As for this actual topic...

I'd take Matt Savinar off the "love" list.

He writes doom to sell solar ovens, netting $40 on each transaction.

"Savinar Debunked"

On the other hand, Matt has done a lot to increase awareness about the issue of oil depletion, even if his spin is a little off.

[Aaron]

Flattering... but I should not really be on the list either way I think.
I'm just some guy in South Texas who blogs a little and helps keep things running around here.

Many of these others are serious scientists, researchers, academics, business icons etc... I just have a smart-mouth & some free time. I do have 3 advantages most of these people don't however.

No financial interest in this Topic
The support of you fine folks
I'm perpetually single, so there's nobody to tell me not to do this.

I am only an egg.

[killJOY]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I')'m just some guy in South Texas who blogs a little and helps keep things running around here.

[killJOY]

Tyler, you're right that Savinar is not an expert, but he never calls himself an "expert," and, in fact, I don't refer students to his site. He doesn't say anything that others haven't already said. LATOC is like one of my students doing the best peak oil project ever.

I see him as a compiler, an early warning beacon.

If I was Matt, that "Savinar Debunked" site we make me pee myself out of flattery.

[NoLogos]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('killJOY', '
')Ruppert: I thought of having a separate can't-make-up-my-mind column, but I'm just having fun here so I've flushed Ruppert. His chapter on peak oil is great (probably due to Dale Pfeiffer, who, as I said, should be on the LOVE list -- along with Byron King, I love geologists), but all that Cheney-with-a-joystick stuff gives me the willies.

Really, how can he have deduced all that?

[AlCzervik]

David Goodstein did a very nice job in Crude Awakening, so he gets a thumbs up.

That Paul Roberts guy gets a thumbs down because he wrote a book called The End of Oil, but rarely ever mentions peak. WTF?

[PenultimateManStanding]

love/hate is weird way to put it, kj, but I get your point. I agree with eastbay on this though. At the top of the 'love' list should be William Catton. But how do you love someone who brings such a message of despair?

[killJOY]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'l')ove/hate is weird way to put it, kj, but I get your point. I agree with eastbay on this though. At the top of the 'love' list should be William Catton. But how do you love someone who brings such a message of despair?

[PenultimateManStanding]

I'm very interested in the issue of how your students respond to your gloomy message. I say gloomy knowing full well that it is correct. Do you have any stories to tell us about that? I've already shared the story of how when I told a class about peak oil that a girl accused me of being a liar.

[killJOY]

Actually, I do very little "messaging." I have them read:
How Long Can Oil Supply Grow? and Beyond Oil

Then we watch Arithmetic Population and Energy.

End of Suburbia: (I keep my personal reservations about Kunstler and Simmons to myself. I recognize the effect their message has on students.)

Crude Awakening: Our class time consists of learning fundamentals: what's a barrel of oil? What is it used for? Who uses what? Who imports what to whom? Stuff you can get at this site (Gibson Consulting).

Students connect the dots in a doomerish way spontaneously. I actually coax them back with this advice:
1. Don't whine/don't complain/don't blame [about high gasoline prices: why gasoline is actually still cheap, and why it's not the "fault" of oil companies that we're paying more].
2. Keep your sense of humor.
3. Use your head. [The "what'll we do?" syndrome. I blurt out, "You figure it out." As everyone's situation is different, everyone's response will be different. If you can make lots of money, maybe you won't be so bad off. If, like me, you hold several part=time jobs, then you grow cabbages.]
4. Panic is not necessary.
5. "ELP" (per Jeffrey Brown)
6. "Bring It On!" I list all the things I'll applaud into collapse (subdivisions, traffic, fastfood). "All the stupid useless crap in American culture is about to be flushed down the toilet."

[As I was typing "American culture" a huge thunderclap took down my computer. Booted back up, there it is! I love this Mozilla browser)

[PenultimateManStanding]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('killJOY', 'S')tudents connect the dots in a doomerish way spontaneously. I actually coax them back