ive been following the issue for quite some time, and observing from afar how people have been waking up to these very serious issues and organizing and preparing for the future.

the most common reaction? armageddon. it makes me laugh. gas prices go up, life gets harder, finances get tighter.. and the most common reaction?

'oh, its the end times, its armageddon.' ive told many people about peak oil.. and well, no.. we arent looking at climate change. we are looking at a bunch of angry old folks. they cant cope. they just get angry.

'dont talk about that, im more interested in whats for dinner.' seriously, i can clear any room in 5 minutes just by speaking the truth.

as for young people? well life is ALREADY hard for us. my rent just went up $100, everything is going up in cost, and i just had to take a pay cut because i had to switch jobs. my credit is gone... but im not really worried.

i have friends. its hard on all of us. ..and we realize its not eachothers fault, so we help eachother out. personally, i dont care about the numbers. i care about if i have a place to live, or if im hungry or not... or if i can get to work and pay my bills. if not, well then someones got a problem.

but not me. lol. your sandwhich or your life. lolol.

I just read the article. Wow! At least it has hit the literary crowd. I don't think this article makes a very good case for peak oil. The doomsday cults are a bit too prominent in the article. This is not the only high profile article that tries to make us seem like a cult of liberal apocalysts. Greg Palast's excellent book "Armed Madhouse" takes time to try to debunk peak oil. He is excellent with his political facts, but comes up with nothing with respect to peak oil. Urstadt doesn't seem like he's ready to face facts either. Depicting peakers as all a bunch of old hippies is a way of discounting the message. I think a few people may dig deeper and find out the truth about peak oil. Most will just throw the magazine in the recycling bin and move on. So sad.

I heard an interview of Urstadt (http://etopiamedia.net/empnn/pages/cpt- ... 51212.html) where the interviewer noted that the Armageddon believers were faith-based when the Peaker's scenarios are science-based. He questioned whether the comparison is legitiment (which is not, IMO). Urstadt's response was that it is true that the Peakers have the facts but he felt they still cannot predict without doing some gross assumptions of the future.

What I felt was interesting is when the interviewer confronted the great uncertainty of "alternative technologies" to save us. Urstadt responded by saying that he had a "general faith" that they will. In other words, the basis behind his certainty of the great technofix is the same thing that binds Armageddon believers.

Great catch.



Thanks for doing that. I was going to ummm... write a letter, but I ahhh... forgot. Glad someone more capable took it on. Will check the letters section for it.

BTW, finished PetroDollar Warfare not too long ago. Well done.

There is something else that bothers me about these comparisons.

It seams the only similarities between the Peaker/Power-downers and the Armageddon believers are their conclusions (somewhat similar, that is).

There are other groups of peak oil aware people who think the crisis is going to spur a basket of technogies and economic responces that are going to smooth-over the transition. Most of these types are proponents of alternate energies or technologies for cars in either EVs or biofuel. This subset of the peaknic is also embracing the oil peak as a critical point but they are projecting different conclusions for the future than the peakers discribed in the artical (Lorenzo, Amory Lovins, James Woolsey are a few examples of PO/techno fixers that come to mind).

Funny thing is that no one would ever compare these folks with the Armageddon believers.

I have to admit to being in the group that thinks that EV's could save us. A scaled down version of the car that runs on some grid, and some power generated at home from renewables could work. If we all get around 2 kilowatts of solar on our garages asap we could keep ourselves somewhat mobile without undue stress on the grid. There is no other way I see of keeping things going without a nasty slide into doomerism. Since I see none of this even beginning to happen, I think that there may be a liberal apocalypse coming.

No it cannot work. Renewables make up less than one half of 1%. Renewable energy is the smallest energy contributer and the American auto fleet is the greatest energy consumer. There is no way to grow solar or wind power to any energy supply that can even begin to push our cars.



I've got good news: we don't need to keep our cars running in order to stave off the apocalypse. Quite the contrary. By us giving up the National Traffic Jam, we will free up the resources and time to make a transition work.

Hard to believe, isn't it?

Yes, it is hard to believe.

After we have spent nearly 100 years plus trillions and trillions of dollars to build a national infrastructure that is spread out across hundreds of thousands of square miles, how do we get around?

Can we all sit at home and work in cyberspace? But who then does the actual wealth creation in our economy? And how do they get around?

I think you must be confusing the realization of a previous bad investment-- albeit, huge in scope-- with a variant of the apocalypse. Much of the "hundreds of thousands of square miles" of car infrastructure you note is not vital to core human needs. Humanity has done fine without the national highway system for most of history. IMO, advanced civilization can do well without it too. The only problem many have is they cannot imagine life without the traffic jam. But that is just a failure of imagination.

I feel I must make clear that this does not have to be an abrupt abandonment of the auto system-- just something that diminishes somewhat slowly with the oil supply. Ten years from now there may be half the cars on the roads as there is today, in thirty years there will 10% and in fifty years there will be almost no cars. Sustainability will not come overnight and it certainly cannot include the car.



Thinking about all the alternatives to solo driving and long distance urban travel-- which there are too many to mention-- none to me look anything like the apocalypse.

I second that.

What is the PO movement anyway?

I think there are two kind of people on this planet. One group is aware of PO and and the other is not. Either way we are doomed. The difference is the ones who are PO aware, think they are knowing exactly why. Does is help? I don't know but I have my moments where I'm thinking "ignorance is bliss"

I think that The Liberal Apocalypse is bringing peak oil awareness to a new segment of the population. I had somebody talk to me yesterday who had become aware of peak oil through the article, and was convinced enough by it to take it seriously. Maybe there is something to the old saying that there is no such thing as bad publicity. Now if people would just actually do something about it...