Why is "Peak Oil" a fount for neo-apocalyptic, libertarian fantasies?

[rockymountaindem]

Take this example:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=3586218&mesg_id=3586218

I don't get it. I know this is supposed to be sort of dismal, but in this post and others like it, I always see a kind of "the modern world is gonna get its come-uppins, mua ha ha ha ha..." tone, as if their dire predictions are going to be a catharsis. Am I the only one who sees this?

While decreasing oil production, the environment and alternative energy are issues I appreciate, I eschew such cataclysmic frivolity. One thing that comes to mind is that scary looking chart of the supposed rise and fall of industrial civilization. After 2020 there's just a burning candle and the background fades to black. What??? Maybe we won't have cars as we know them anymore, but there will definitely still be electricity in 2020, whether from renewables, natural gas, nuclear power or good old coal (which we have a 300 year supply of, btw). I think the reason renewable alternatives aren't studied is because for now they are unprofitable. When oil gets too expensive, then the smart money will invest in cheaper alternatives. Hydrogen won't work, you say? Well, they said the same thing about flying, the railroad, calculus etc. etc. Something these people don't consider is where oil came from in the first place. The reason people started using oil in the 1850s was because we ran out of whales. I'm sure there were some "peak whale" theorists running about fretting about what we were going to do when we ran out of whales. But wait! Edwin Drake invented the oil well, and everything was ok.

This is one situation where the capitalist free market is everyone's best friend. One thing I learned in my economics classes is that for all it's flaws, free market systems are very quick to react to market changes. I, for one, am confident that we'll find oil alternatives when we're pushed up against the wall. Until they become profitable, however, we're stuck with oil.

DU is a decent political website, but it sucks at science. All these people sprout up saying "XYZ is only an energy carrier, not a source like oil!!!" Wrong. If you'll recall 9th grade biology, you'll remember that the only "source" of energy we have is the sun. Everything else is just storage of energy. From physics, we learn that energy cannot be created nor destroyed. Oil, like everything else, is energy storage. Saying "it's only a carrier" is a bullshit reason to write off emerging energy technology.

As for their little communitarian, libertarian fantasies, those are perhaps the silliest thing I've seen. The way these Peak Oilers put things, it seems like they would prefer eking out a harsh existence to living in modern society. And another thing, there was "big government" prior to oil, and it'll be there when oil is gone. This near extinction (whether it happens or not) will only strengthen the state system, I believe. There was big government in 1800, 1600, 1400 etc. The only difference is that now government is supposed to help the people, not merely control them. The kind of thing above is no better than the little John Titor time-machine hoax. Why do people revel in such dark fantasies?

[TayTay]

1. Because it makes them feel significant

when they currently feel marginalized. Some people like to feel that there will be a great day of reckoning in which they will be revealed as having the correct views and other will be shown to have been wrong. (There are whole religions built around this.) The Peak Oil thing is a real event, and it is correct to be worried. (More on economics than anything else.) Several financial houses are predicting the advent of $100 a barrel oil in the not too distant future as America is forced to compete for this resource with the emerging economic powerhouses of China and India.

We will, as Sen. Kerry has said, have to invent ourselves out of this. Oil, as a fuel source, has drawbacks, not the least of which is environmental damage. The greater danger to the future of the Republic is that we are cutting off on the funding for colleges and America is failing to teach science to to push kids into careers in the sciences. This is far more damaging for the future than the Peak Oil concern.

[rockymountaindem]

2. kick