The church of Peak Oil

[Beery]

The market with all it's flaws is about all we have available to drive changes in global behaviour.

Which is pretty freaking sad, considering that we are the most intelligent species on the planet. One would hope that at least some people in influential positions would seek to drive change based on what's best for all of us, rather than simply laying down and accepting the 'wisdom' of what is essentially a mindless global Walmart. The Market has no conscience, no ethics and it's not even intelligent. In effect, those of us who trust in the Market are trusting in an alien force whose only beneficial characteristic is that, although it would happily kill us all if it saw a penny's profit in it, it is too blind and stupid to even know what's profitable. If the market had any intelligence at all, it wouldn't make it profitable for us to extract the fossil fuels that are killing us.

Yet some folks gladly - even proudly - follow the Moron Market. Suicide by capitalism - what a wonderfully stupid (yet well-deserved) way for our 'advanced' society to go out: gleefully following a blind moron off a cliff.

But the Market can be directed, so that people get an incentive to do what's best for them down the road. That's how some European nations are ahead of the curve on PO. Left to itself, the market tends to make disasters like PO worse than they need to be. Personally, I don't really care if millions of people die when the market decides (in its mindless way) that they're superfluous. I just think it's wasteful when a little forethought could conserve all that potential and allow us a soft landing rather than a mass culling of the herd.

But if that's what it takes to finally convince everyone that slavishly following the Market is dumb, so be it. Capitalism has had more than a fair chance. Time to move beyond. Hopefully next time (assuming we're all still around after the Market leads us into a really big disaster) we'll figure out an economic system that doesn't throw many of us off a cliff every time there's a perfectly foreseeable and preventable disaster.

[Cloud9]

What is pretty freaking sad is the deep down yearning some on this board have to turn their lives over to some central committee. Don’t you realize that that committee will be made up of people? People just like the members of your local city council and your local school board. Have you ever sat in on those meetings?

All I can figure is that you people have looked at yourselves and decided that you are individually weak and stupid. You wish to have your personal decisions made by individuals you deem superior to yourselves. That is sad, truly sad. I for one would prefer to be left with as many personal decisions as possible. I understand that I should be left to suffer the consequences of my personal decisions, but on the flip side, I should be allowed to reap the benefits of my good decisions. You must understand that half the population is below average. A collective by its very nature is ruled by mediocrity. If it is not, it is not a collective, it is a personality cult. Personality cults are dictatorships.

[ian807]

The problem with leaving things to the market is that few people understand systems theory enough to know what the market is.

The closest analogy I can think of off the top of my head is a bacterial colony like Paenibacillus (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paenibacillus). Paenibacillus has no brain, yet it manages to produce complex pattern forming behaviors. Paenibacillus is just one example (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/27/AR2008072701443.html).

What bacteria can't do, is anticipate, plan, think ahead, or really, think at all. They just respond to food supply or temperature the way a shopkeeper would respond to changes in price or supply. An individual shopkeeper might think ahead. Shopkeepers en masse, however, do not. Bacteria and shopkeepers work only for themselves. Adaptive self organization, when it occurs, is a happy coincidence for the bacteria and shopkeepers. Economist like to call that self-organization "the invisible hand."

Free market folks like the bacteria strategy, betting on the fact that they as individuals will be the winners. Peak oilers think anticipation and planning, possibly as a group, is the thing. Since neither strategy will ever produce perfect results or make perfect predictions, both sides have plenty or room for criticism.

The interesting thing is that nature produced both emergent behavior properties of bacteria AND hierarchical, central planning structures (e.g. the frontal lobe of the human brain). If I had to take my cues from nature, I'd say we need both.

[Ibon]

I have to acknowledge that in 2003 when I went to the first peak oil conference I had just sold my previous business and was in transition at the time. Not sure of what was coming next. The "peak oil story" filled a void of sorts. Easy to do because of how perfect the story fits the consequences of overshoot.

The story also helped define the direction I took afterwards but ironically once I got fully involved in this new project that "story" slowly fell into the background and became less compelling.

Like all religions this one should serve the purpose to inspire rather than drag you down into dogma

[Lore]

What is pretty freaking sad is the deep down yearning some on this board have to turn their lives over to some central committee. Don’t you realize that that committee will be made up of people? People just like the members of your local city council and your local school board. Have you ever sat in on those meetings?

All I can figure is that you people have looked at yourselves and decided that you are individually weak and stupid. You wish to have your personal decisions made by individuals you deem superior to yourselves. That is sad, truly sad. I for one would prefer to be left with as many personal decisions as possible. I understand that I should be left to suffer the consequences of my personal decisions, but on the flip side, I should be allowed to reap the benefits of my good decisions. You must understand that half the population is below average. A collective by its very nature is ruled by mediocrity. If it is not, it is not a collective, it is a personality cult. Personality cults are dictatorships.

I agree! Big money corporations are the despots of our time and society. Effectively squelching any individual decision and opportunity the common man has left. We have prostrated ourselves at the alter of the all mighty dollar for the sake of profits and adolescent pleasures.

We are led by plutocrats and those enjoying the corporatocracy.

[Quinny]

IMHO the market is a good servant but a bad master.

In many ways it's reactivity to circumstances is similar to the way individuals and others react. This does not mean it produces the most desirable action, the intervention of thought and planning will generally improve results.

The problem with leaving things to the market is that few people understand systems theory enough to know what the market is.

The closest analogy I can think of off the top of my head is a bacterial colony like Paenibacillus (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paenibacillus). Paenibacillus has no brain, yet it manages to produce complex pattern forming behaviors. Paenibacillus is just one example (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/27/AR2008072701443.html).

What bacteria can't do, is anticipate, plan, think ahead, or really, think at all. They just respond to food supply or temperature the way a shopkeeper would respond to changes in price or supply. An individual shopkeeper might think ahead. Shopkeepers en masse, however, do not. Bacteria and shopkeepers work only for themselves. Adaptive self organization, when it occurs, is a happy coincidence for the bacteria and shopkeepers. Economist like to call that self-organization "the invisible hand."

Free market folks like the bacteria strategy, betting on the fact that they as individuals will be the winners. Peak oilers think anticipation and planning, possibly as a group, is the thing. Since neither strategy will ever produce perfect results or make perfect predictions, both sides have plenty or room for criticism.

The interesting thing is that nature produced both emergent behavior properties of bacteria AND hierarchical, central planning structures (e.g. the frontal lobe of the human brain). If I had to take my cues from nature, I'd say we need both.

[sparky]

AS Humans we have the ability to structure observations into though systems we are cursed with imaginations and needs

a belief system is a road map to living by , Peak Oil is one of those , for some . for me it's not a belief , it's an observation
we use the stuff , it cost more and more , people are seeking it further and deeper
the Earth is finite .

I'll leave the conclusions and the reasoning to those who have the taste for speculation

[nevadaexile]

Did coal just disappear as an energy source?
How about geothermal?
Or tidal generation?

There are many sources of energy that aren't being tapped due to the (relatively) cheap cost of hydrocarbons.
When oil starts to run low, they'll step in to take its place.
And the world keeps turning.....

[Loki]

Did coal just disappear as an energy source?
How about geothermal?
Or tidal generation?

There are many sources of energy that aren't being tapped due to the (relatively) cheap cost of hydrocarbons.
When oil starts to run low, they'll step in to take its place.
And the world keeps turning.....

Oh jeesh, here we go

[Lore]

Did coal just disappear as an energy source? ... And the world keeps turning.....

The important overriding factor, if you remember anything about Peak Oil, is that you can have alternatives for oil, but you can't replace it.

[EXSLOPER]

Which is pretty freaking sad, considering that we are the most intelligent species on the planet. One would hope that at least some people in influential positions would seek to drive change based on what's best for all of us, rather than simply laying down and accepting the 'wisdom' of what is essentially a mindless global Walmart.

...

And there lies the problem, who gets to decide "what's best for all of us?" What's best for me certainly won't be best for the majority of other people, so who gets to be the decider?
We live in the real world, it isn't fair for a girl born to a farmer in India any more than it is for a three legged zebra at a hyena convention (or for a banker to get multimillion dollar bonuses when most people in the world subsist on a tiny fraction of that.) Have you considered the possibility that, as mindless and destructive as it is, the reason why a world with 6+billion people still hasn't found a better system than "The Market" for determining winners and losers is that... this is as good as it gets?

[kiwichick]

if this is as good as it gets i suggest you kiss your children goodbye

[Revi]

We are all going to end up broke if the market persists in wiping out small farmers and craftsmen. We need to start up small enterprises that don't make a lot of economic sense right now, but that could be the difference between life and death in the near future. We have a small woodlot where we make maple syrup. It is a great way to move from dependency to something that can provide heat and food. There are a lot of other ways to make things out there. Here are a few things we have done to our house to use less energy:

http://www.youtube.com/user/newfarmerfi ... gk7aQvqiYs

[Lore]

I really don't buy into Kunstler's, "World Made by Hand" outcome. Oh, we will certainly be doing things the hardway in the future, but with less optimisim as we face the 6th Extinction which will include us.

[bratticus]

The problem with Peak Oil the theory isn’t that it’s wrong in noting that industry depletes resources, and that oil may, sooner or later, reach a production plateau

Oh, yeah, "someday".

[Loki]

We are all going to end up broke if the market persists in wiping out small farmers and craftsmen. We need to start up small enterprises that don't make a lot of economic sense right now, but that could be the difference between life and death in the near future. We have a small woodlot where we make maple syrup. It is a great way to move from dependency to something that can provide heat and food. There are a lot of other ways to make things out there.

Absolutely Revi, well said. I wish we would talk more about how to create a society in which small farmers, craftsmen, and other independent small businesses can flourish.

We need to grow smaller and smarter, favoring small businesses and individual entrepreneurship over globalized corporations and the centralization of power and stifling of opportunity they represent. This is very much in keeping with the Jeffersonian vision of the American Republic. It's not Capitalism vs. Socialism, it's Big vs. Small. It's a matter of scale.

I firmly believe this kind of 'smaller is better' thinking will help us weather the storms of peak oil and climate change. All of a sudden I feel the need to reread Schumacher's 'Small is Beautiful'....

[ian807]

Have you considered the possibility that, as mindless and destructive as it is, the reason why a world with 6+billion people still hasn't found a better system than "The Market" for determining winners and losers is that... this is as good as it gets?

If that's true, we're doomed as a species as we plunder resources for personal benefit without thought for others or tomorrow. And you may be right. Easter Island (i.e. extinction), or present day Haiti, may be our collective future.

[aldente]

AS Humans we have the ability to structure observations into though systems we are cursed with imaginations and needs
a belief system is a road map to living by , Peak Oil is one of those , for some . for me it's not a belief , it's an observation

The term "curse" that you use is a haunted one, the country of Togo supposedly is the original ground of voodoo, so my suggestion would be to travel there to continue research. I was able to visit Ghana in 1988 and the place is extemely positive, in fact, if there is such a thing like a true retirement plan it would be to live in Ghana forever.

[SeaGypsy]

While Lore is usually spot on, I continue to disagree with his/her conclusion, which is pretty much Lovelock's/ the future is global Easter Island.

To my mind there are a large amount of people who cannot envisage any other way to live than the way in which they have grown accustomed. Anything else seems impossible, thus the conclusion "We're all DOOMED".

Fact is there are still many millions of people around the world who have thus far had zero or very close to it, help from modernity and the oil age. These would barely notice if/when the entire system goes crunch.

Another fact is that suicide and other depression related maladies occur inversely to lack of wealth. The richer countries are the saddest, many of the poorest countries are far happier. Suicide is virtually unknown in the Carribean or in tribal Asia/ Africa, we all know it's rife in Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Australia, northern Europe, the USA and Canada.

Humanity will struggle on, in much smaller numbers.

[pstarr]

I really don't buy into Kunstler's, "World Made by Hand" outcome. Oh, we will certainly be doing things the hardway in the future, but with less optimisim as we face the 6th Extinction which will include us.

Gotta love it