Donate Bitcoin

Donate Paypal


PeakOil is You

PeakOil is You

Are people outside of Peak Oil just dumb?

General discussions of the systemic, societal and civilisational effects of depletion.

Are people dumb for not getting peak oil?

Poll ended at Wed 23 Jul 2008, 06:02:54

Yes, they are ignoring the most important issue of our time.
44
54%
No, the people have enough to deal with in their lives
19
23%
I'm too busy shopping to deal with this poll.
2
2%
Peak Oil I'm just trying live from day to day!
4
5%
Its the oil companies they have plenty of oil!
0
No votes
I'm too busy stockpiling weapons, food and ammo.
7
9%
Don't you watch TV everyone says oil prices will come down.
6
7%
It's the liberals we have plenty of oil in Alaska!
0
No votes
 
Total votes : 82

Re: Are people outside of Peak Oil just dumb?

Unread postby KaiserJeep » Sun 15 Apr 2018, 00:45:42

Ibon, It is because those 3/4ths of the population exist only because of mechanized agriculture, the application of petrochemical-based fertilizers/pesticides/herbicides, and the inexpensive transport of bulk foods by ship and train and truck.

The thing about agricultural science is that it has maximized the yields of crops and meat and dairy products. It has been estimated that without fuels and petrochemicals, using just nearby farm lands and agrarian/organic/permaculture methods, the world can feed about 1-2 billion people. Even that many assumes some fuels dervived from coal and some biofuels.

We pretty much eat petroleum is what this amounts to. Without cheap oil, many will starve. Even though we will be using farming practices that are more sound than what we have today, and depending largely on human labor, the reduced yields are going to hurt, and potentially we are farming just as much area, if not actually more.

The USA for example, may be able to feed itself, but will cease food exports. We will be better off than most countries. In Africa, Asia, and South America, many have too little to eat already. Without oil, that becomes NOTHING.
KaiserJeep 2.0, Neural Subnode 0010 0000 0001 0110 - 1001 0011 0011, Tertiary Adjunct to Unimatrix 0000 0000 0001

Resistance is Futile, YOU will be Assimilated.

Warning: Messages timestamped before April 1, 2016, 06:00 PST were posted by the unmodified human KaiserJeep 1.0
KaiserJeep
Light Sweet Crude
Light Sweet Crude
 
Posts: 6094
Joined: Tue 06 Aug 2013, 17:16:32
Location: Wisconsin's Dreamland

Re: Are people outside of Peak Oil just dumb?

Unread postby Ibon » Sun 15 Apr 2018, 09:02:14

KaiserJeep wrote:
We pretty much eat petroleum is what this amounts to. Without cheap oil, many will starve. Even though we will be using farming practices that are more sound than what we have today, and depending largely on human labor, the reduced yields are going to hurt, and potentially we are farming just as much area, if not actually more.



Early on in my engagement with peak oil I believed exactly the same. I applied what I learned in ecology about carrying capacity and how in any ecosystem you look at the energy available to support the biomass contained therein. The energy of prairie grasses in a given hectare to support x amount of buffalo for example. Then you look at the graph of the glaring parallel of oil consumption and population growth in the past 200 years. Yes, once fossil fuels decline the population will as well. So far so good.

Now what happens moving forward? I mentioned in another thread about how opulence is making us degenerate. This degeneracy is actually directly correlated to all the non essential usages of fossil fuels. I don't have the figures, I don't know if anyone has even attempted to tease out essentials from non essentials, but I highly suspect that the amount of fossil fuel energy required to run mechanized agriculture and transport finished goods is quite small compared to the incredible waste of energy in the manufacture and distribution of all the products that modern humans entertain themselves with. Built into this degenerate opulence is a huge infrastructure of waste and discretionary energy consumption. And this will recede dramatically as fossil fuels constrain in the decades and centuries ahead.

Now to the most important part of this whole dynamic. What directly changes in our culture when fossil fuels decline is this culture of degeneracy. The pendulum swings. Generations start to emerge that are not raised in the opulence of degenerate entertainment. And this creates it's own dynamic in relationship specifically to energy. As Matt Simmons said years ago the biggest problem we have as a modern civilization regarding peak oil is that we do not cherish this amazing gift that fossil fuels provide. We don't cherish this resource because we have become degenerate. It is just that simple.

When the pendulum swings the whole cultural orientation swings. This is what I think you do not consider when you make this bold prediction that 3/4 of the worlds population will die due to the upcoming fossil fuel constraints.

Also, this process is a couple centuries long, not within a single generations lifetime.

In conclusion, this whole dynamic is beyond the time horizon of our current modern political cultural paradigm to incorporate into any specific action. This is why I no longer give peak oil or climate change or any of the other factors of human overshoot much importance. Actually, activism is irrelevant until the pendulum of cultural degeneracy swings the other direction due to the bite of constraints. Until then we are stuck in a degenerate quagmire.
Patiently awaiting the pathogens. Our resiliency resembles an invasive weed. We are the Kudzu Ape
blog: http://blog.mounttotumas.com/
website: http://www.mounttotumas.com
User avatar
Ibon
Expert
Expert
 
Posts: 9568
Joined: Fri 03 Dec 2004, 04:00:00
Location: Volcan, Panama

Re: Are people outside of Peak Oil just dumb?

Unread postby onlooker » Sun 15 Apr 2018, 09:38:00

853px-US_energy_consumption_by_sector.svg.png
I think this matter of essential services and non essential is very important. I am including this graph which details the percentage of energy use per major sector of the US economy. What is interesting is how much of total energy use is dedicated to Transportation and Electricity. Now in terms of electricity, I do believe a transition of some sort can occur to renewables and to nuclear and so FF becomes less essential in that respect. Second, with regards transportation, the point made by many is this extravagant prolific driving by Americans has to and will cease. Work can be assigned much close to the job site. Recreational driving will need to be curtailed somehow. And many goods that are non essential should cease to be transported and used. Therein lies a large savings in non essential energy use. So, this is certainly a topic open to much discussion.
You do not have the required permissions to view the files attached to this post.
"We are mortal beings doomed to die
User avatar
onlooker
Fission
Fission
 
Posts: 10957
Joined: Sun 10 Nov 2013, 13:49:04
Location: NY, USA

Re: Are people outside of Peak Oil just dumb?

Unread postby ROCKMAN » Sun 15 Apr 2018, 12:12:56

Baha – “Wow, that's almost insulting”. Not really…if I read you correctly. It works both ways. I’ve made companies $millions for following my recommendations. But I’ve seen companies lose even more money by not following my recommendations which argued to NOT DRILL a well. And often the decision to drill was made out of desperation. I nonce had a consulting gig to screen drilling prospects. They gave me their required economic parameters. Which yielded rather high rates of return which were required because they were borrowing very expensive capex. After several months I had not recommended a single prospect so I was cut loose. I knew the geologist that replaced me: he had a 16% home mortgage, was $150,000 upside down on his home’s value and had two kids in private school. Of course, he was going to lie his ass off and recommend enough deals to keep his fee coming in every month as long as possible. And 18 months later that drilling fund filled Chapter 7 and was liquidated.

Bottom line: over the last 4 decades I’ve made many more recommendations to not drill then drill. Ad by far the largest % of crappy prospects were drilled during boom times when oil/NG prices were high. Same reason the EROEI of wells drilled today is much higher then when oil was $90+/bbl.
User avatar
ROCKMAN
Expert
Expert
 
Posts: 11397
Joined: Tue 27 May 2008, 03:00:00
Location: TEXAS

Re: Are people outside of Peak Oil just dumb?

Unread postby Ibon » Sun 15 Apr 2018, 18:01:13

baha wrote:
Ibon wrote:This degeneracy is actually directly correlated to all the non essential usages of fossil fuels.


Exactly, take them away, and people will mature.

Ibon wrote:And this will recede dramatically as fossil fuels constrain in the decades and centuries ahead.


Or it could recede as a result of good policy and a clear plan to make it happen.

Ibon wrote:The pendulum swings. Generations start to emerge that are not raised in the opulence of degenerate entertainment.


Or we could create this dynamic ourselves. It could be done in decades instead of centuries if we all work together...and agree that it's a good thing.


To make good policy and work together we have to overcome the degeneracy. Since we need the constraints for this to happen I must conclude you are putting the cart before the horse.

I would be overjoyed to be proven wrong...... but I aint holden my breath any.
Patiently awaiting the pathogens. Our resiliency resembles an invasive weed. We are the Kudzu Ape
blog: http://blog.mounttotumas.com/
website: http://www.mounttotumas.com
User avatar
Ibon
Expert
Expert
 
Posts: 9568
Joined: Fri 03 Dec 2004, 04:00:00
Location: Volcan, Panama

Re: Are people outside of Peak Oil just dumb?

Unread postby ROCKMAN » Mon 16 Apr 2018, 11:18:07

baha - "There is always another way to do things." As I've always suspected you would make a great benevolent dictator. Best wishes for your revolution. LOL.
User avatar
ROCKMAN
Expert
Expert
 
Posts: 11397
Joined: Tue 27 May 2008, 03:00:00
Location: TEXAS

Re: Are people outside of Peak Oil just dumb?

Unread postby Ibon » Mon 16 Apr 2018, 11:46:58

baha wrote:There is always another way to do things. I just haven't thought of it yet :)


Your looking at a peach tree full of green unripe fruits and your thinking about biting into a juicy sweet peach and you can't figure out why it isn't happening. If you think about it long enough you will find the solution!
Patiently awaiting the pathogens. Our resiliency resembles an invasive weed. We are the Kudzu Ape
blog: http://blog.mounttotumas.com/
website: http://www.mounttotumas.com
User avatar
Ibon
Expert
Expert
 
Posts: 9568
Joined: Fri 03 Dec 2004, 04:00:00
Location: Volcan, Panama

Re: Are people outside of Peak Oil just dumb?

Unread postby KaiserJeep » Mon 16 Apr 2018, 12:52:01

Speaking of fruits. Yesterday I looked into the back yard and saw lemons overhanging the back fence. They must have been last year's lemons, but with the Spring rains and sun were plump and waxy and had a wonderful fragrance. In prior years I plucked them singly, but yesterday because the pool decking is gone and the fence is seven feet high, there were 8 large plump fruits well out of reach, looking at them made my mouth water. So I put an old piece of plywood down in the mud and set up my ladder.

Fresh lemonade this morning.
KaiserJeep 2.0, Neural Subnode 0010 0000 0001 0110 - 1001 0011 0011, Tertiary Adjunct to Unimatrix 0000 0000 0001

Resistance is Futile, YOU will be Assimilated.

Warning: Messages timestamped before April 1, 2016, 06:00 PST were posted by the unmodified human KaiserJeep 1.0
KaiserJeep
Light Sweet Crude
Light Sweet Crude
 
Posts: 6094
Joined: Tue 06 Aug 2013, 17:16:32
Location: Wisconsin's Dreamland

Re: Are people outside of Peak Oil just dumb?

Unread postby onlooker » Mon 16 Apr 2018, 13:33:34

Fresh lemonade this morning.

Something worth living for :lol:
"We are mortal beings doomed to die
User avatar
onlooker
Fission
Fission
 
Posts: 10957
Joined: Sun 10 Nov 2013, 13:49:04
Location: NY, USA

Re: Are people outside of Peak Oil just dumb?

Unread postby ROCKMAN » Tue 17 Apr 2018, 12:05:03

baha - "At some point in the next twenty years you will be left sitting in the dark with no communications."Hell, that could happen tomorrow. With a large enough coronal mass ejection blasting out of the sun at just the right vector to wack the earth it's a definite possibility. Just in the US they estimate at least 10 years to build enough transformers to replace all the fried ones. And that wouldn't leave enough capex to replace all the fried com sats.

Speaking fruit my wife just told me we'll soon have a few blueberries from our 18" bush she planted a month of so ago. Got it thru Amazon. Blueberries in Houston! Someone worked really hard developing that hybrid.
User avatar
ROCKMAN
Expert
Expert
 
Posts: 11397
Joined: Tue 27 May 2008, 03:00:00
Location: TEXAS

Re: Are people outside of Peak Oil just dumb?

Unread postby Ibon » Tue 17 Apr 2018, 18:47:35

baha wrote:OK, I slept on it...and thought of the answer :)

What we need are constraints. Our usual anthropomorphic view of the world leads us to think we have to apply the constraints. But Mother Nature has been doing this since the beginning of time.

I will predict that She is going to berate us with storm after storm after storm. At some point in the next twenty years you will be left sitting in the dark with no communications. The house will be shaking and you will be scared and alone. It will change your life.

She will assert herself one way or another. And we will mature and adapt or die.


With the exception of the past 100 years or so the history of our species has been coexisting with constraints. In fact, probably our sentience is a result of tinkering endlessly with constraints. It made us who we are. Honing our skills and technology up against constraints is what ironically took us to where we are today.

The flip side is that we have had absolutely no practice with managing abundance. We have no history of regulating abundance. Neither culturally or physiologically. The love of fat and sugar is directly related to the fact that these substances were scarce in our environment and we developed taste buds and receptors that desire these substances.

This probably explains why instead of putting on the breaks we have been putting the pedal to the metal in expanding our population and consumption. It's like we are not really comfortable in our skin when there is too much opulence so we get neurotic and try to burn through it all with a restlessness...... which is really nothing more than a collective desire to get back to that place where our external environment sharpens our skills, not dulls them. Opulence is dulling. Constraints are like the sharpening stone that make us sharp.

This is why solutions are embracing and moving into the consequences....... how long have I stated this. Baha, your post is an indication you got the drift.

There is no putting the cart before the horse, planning and regulation do not come before the consequences. Planning and regulation and wise stewardship will be the potential results of dealing with the upcoming consequences.
Patiently awaiting the pathogens. Our resiliency resembles an invasive weed. We are the Kudzu Ape
blog: http://blog.mounttotumas.com/
website: http://www.mounttotumas.com
User avatar
Ibon
Expert
Expert
 
Posts: 9568
Joined: Fri 03 Dec 2004, 04:00:00
Location: Volcan, Panama

PreviousNext

Return to Peak Oil Discussion

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 32 guests