Forbes on peak oil

[Eddie Haskell]

http://www.forbes.com/pictures/efee45fjmg/oil-production-v-oil-discovery

The West and the free market capitalism is caught between a rock and a hard place. If oil approaches $100, the economy starts to swoon, markets fall, the price of oil swiftly drops back below $85 and we're back in business. This has happened repeatedly. We are bouncing off a production ceiling. Our economy is thus constrained and schizophrenic. Planning is impossible in this environment. The only solution is to use less oil by getting more from what we've got. Since production is expected to fall 2 to 3% a year, we should commit to Colin Campbell's solution: use 3% less oil a year and reward efficiency instead of speculation.

[jwirr]

1. "We are bouncing off a production ceiling....reward efficiency instead

of speculation" Truth at last. We need energy efficient cars, more bus/train lines, conservation programs and stimulus programs that begin to rebuild America for the real future without oil. Unfortunately there are people like my sister who just shrugs and tell me that science will come up with something by that time. Our god has been science ever since Superman first came into our lives. What if our scientific god fails?

[napoleon_in_rags]

2. Science will come up with something...

Namely a way to quickly and safely move a 150 pound human around without first wrapping them in two tons of steel and propelling them by lighting dinosaur remains on fire. That's what people don't want to accept, they think we've reached the end of history, and science will prop up the status quo, it will be cars and cheeseburgers forever. But the one thing science reliably does throughout its history is to destroy the status quo, constant change.

[jwirr]

3. Science is all about change and the reality around us. I agree people

do not want to accept this idea. I think most just plain cannot envision anything beyond what they already know. And many are afraid. The problem is of course that if we do not accept what is happening and move to make those changes it will only be worse.

I was born in 1941 - I know we were in a war but there was also a much simpler lifestyle that was not such a greedy era. We had just come out of a Great Depression and most of us were still living the agrarian life that allowed us to be at the least self sufficient in many ways. It also was a era of extended families and neighborhoods. When I read Kunstler's book World Made By Hand that is what I thought about.

We did use fossil based fuels but on a much smaller level. I remember electrical appliances - lights radio, clothes washer, natural gas cooking stove (often setting right beside the wood stove which was also used for cooking), the radio we listened to for entertainment and new (FDR). That was in the house. My father had a small tractor to farm with but I also remember using the horses to do some of the farm chores because I got to ride along with my grandfather. It was so much simpler but it was also an era of peace on a local scale. I long for that simplicity and that degree of independence from WalMart and the corporations.

We now have more knowledge so it would not have to be that exact form of lifestyle but I would like to see us begin to rebuild the simplicity and community back into our lives. That will go a long way toward helping us survive the future changes that are coming rather we like them or not.

We need to learn from the past and use the knowledge we have acquired to recreate a livable world. It will not be easy because there is always going to be a Tbagger somewhere around the corner to try to stop us.

[napoleon_in_rags]

9. I long for that simplicity and that degree of independence from WalMart and the corporations.

Wow, amazing to hear from somebody with the experience you must have between now and 1941 with different modes of life.

I grew up in the 80s and 90s, so in many ways its been technology the whole way (just getting more and more all consuming) but there are these moments when I yearn for something missing. There was this time when an electric thing near my house exploded, and knocked out power to the whole neighborhood. At first it was a pain, but I lit up a lamp and went to bed that night, and there was the most amazing silence, not just of sound, but also of light...and silence of something more. No computer staring me in the face, no beeping lights, no short radio waves darting around my house and through my skin, just darkness and silence. It seemed so absolutely new, so fresh, so peaceful. I realized outside of a few camping trips, rarely have experienced anything like that in my life.

But when you were young, I imagine many more people knew something like that silence every night.

I remember going out into the woods not to long ago, lying on my back to look at the stars. Tiny points of light were weaving through them, visible satellites and space crap. Noise, taking over even the stillness of the stars. A small voice in the back of my head warning me that something holy has been lost. The young don't seem to know, they are looking at their smart phones.

[4dsc]

4. the ole "technology will save the day" rant

Sorry to burst your little bubble but oil, cheap and abundant oil, is the technology in which we built this consumer bases world. With a future of less oil, a lot less oil, technology isn't going to save your ass or anyone else for that matter.

Simply put, there is no alternative to oil.

[jwirr]

5. Isn't that what I said? Read the first post I made in this thread. You

are not bursting my bubble. I have had my family learning sustainable technology for at least 20 years. Waiting for others to join the move.

What I was saying about living in the 40s is that we can get by with a lot less and that there are other ways to do many of the things we use oil to do today. Sorry you misread.

[4dsc]

7. So what energy source do you believe is "sustainable"?

Sorry but we are an oil based society. While there is apparent waste in the system, we are still dependent upon it for everything. Including producing so called alternatives.

[jwirr]

8. Actually I did not say anything like that. I lived in an era that was a

transition period between sustainable sources and what we have now. We heated our small homes with wood while heating only the rooms we were in at the time. We used horses to do much of the farming and could have done it all that way. We also had smaller farms that created most of the food we ate on site. The gardens etc were maintained through human labor. What more can I say? Apparently you know my thoughts better than I - so I will just let you have it your way - which is not helpful at all.

[napoleon_in_rags]

11. Yes, peak oil will probably doom civilization as it is.

But that's because we're freaking MORONS.

I see you're a peak oil guy. Check out the movie Gashole if you get a chance. I was expecting just another peak oil flick, but it had some really fresh stuff in it, like how oil companies lobbied to stop alternative transportation and in depth detail on historic suppression of gas saving technologies, which I had been told was largely myth. The takeaway isn't that peak oil was some natural disaster waiting to happen, its that the way corporations are set up for short term profit combined with the finite nature of this resource that set up us the bomb here. It didn't have to be that way, efficient energy usage could have mellowed the whole boom bust nature of this beast.

So while trends may agree with you that will remain insane, don't yell at me for advocating for SANITY in energy usage.

[Terry in Austin]

6. Bingo. It's all about the cars.

Americans -- they'll give up their cars whey you pry the steering wheels from their cold dead fingers.

[napoleon_in_rags]

10. Americans will give up their cars when gas pumps pry the last dollar from their cold empty wallets.

And given all trends, they will.