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PeakOil is You

PeakOil is You

Peak oil: Do you want it to occur?

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

Do you want oil production to peak, sometime in the reasonably near future?

Yes I do
103
53%
No I don't
93
47%
 
Total votes : 196

Peak oil: Do you want it to occur?

Unread postby Oil-Finder » Fri 28 Dec 2007, 03:57:20

Be honest!
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Re: Peak oil: Do you want it to occur?

Unread postby Lighthouse » Fri 28 Dec 2007, 04:09:44

why would anyone want peakoil to happen? Just think at all the hardship which will come when we reach the peak.

Unfortunately its not important what we want.

I't will happen regardless if we want it or not ...
I am a sarcastic cynic. Some say I'm an asshole. Now that we have that out of the way ...
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Re: Peak oil: Do you want it to occur?

Unread postby Oil-Finder » Fri 28 Dec 2007, 04:13:34

Lighthouse wrote:why would anyone want peakoil to happen?

Oh, I can show you a lot of people on this board who want peak oil to happen. Such as this:
http://www.peakoil.com/fortopic35063.html
The day I learned about PO and that it is imminent was one of my happiest day. I finally knew that the consumerism will come to an end. The cheap chineese trash won' be seen anymore in stores around here. And most probably most of those big box stores will be gone, too. Life will finally return to "normal".
And with some luck I'm here to witness it all. YEAH !!!!
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Re: Peak oil: Do you want it to occur?

Unread postby seldom_seen » Fri 28 Dec 2007, 04:42:27

I read the quote you put forth, and I see someone who looks forward not to PO, but the end of mass consumerism, cheap chinese goods, and big box stores. That sounds like a pretty rational and healthy desire to me...do you disagree?

Don't worry, it's normal to project your fear and uncertainty around PO on to the messenger. It happens around here all the time. You're starting to hatch from your cocoon of denial. A fledgling moth, with a new set of wings. It feels awkward at first. Just take baby steps at first and try to understand what other people are trying to say.
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Re: Peak oil: Do you want it to occur?

Unread postby mos6507 » Fri 28 Dec 2007, 05:00:23

I don't want a dieoff to happen but I want enough of a peak or edge of a peak to happen in order to economically pressure people to get off of oil, since nobody seems to want to do it purely for environmental reasons. So I'm somewhere in between a yes and a no. The big question is how much pressure will be enough pressure to get people to change. If you are cynical enough, a dieoff is exactly what it's going to take. But since that's likely to take you or me along with the others, I don't think that's exactly something to wish for.
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Re: Peak oil: Do you want it to occur?

Unread postby Grifter » Fri 28 Dec 2007, 06:48:09

I want endless growth in a finite world.

I want corporations to grow and improve the environment.

I want us to grow our energy infrastructure and use technology to make it all clean and nice.

I want to drive my car where and when I want and I want to have heated water and a heated house at the flick of a switch without worrying about the cost.

But you can't always get what you want :(
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Re: Peak oil: Do you want it to occur?

Unread postby Tanada » Fri 28 Dec 2007, 07:13:05

Hell no, I want cheap and easy energy slaves to be availible to myself and all my neighbors and their kids to the nth generation.

What I want is irrelevant, which is something I learned as a small child. A lot of people have not learned this lesson and will not understand why they can not have what they want when they want it and as often as they want it. That is going to make for some incredibly painful times for many modern people, and I hope they don't loose controll to the point of starting resource wars and/or nuclear genocide wars.
Alfred Tennyson wrote:We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
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Re: Peak oil: Do you want it to occur?

Unread postby bl00k » Fri 28 Dec 2007, 07:46:00

NO! I don't want Peak Oil to happen. I want either to find more oil to quintuple our current reserves but rather for us to find another liquid energy comparable to oil which is clean and infinite.

Anyone who *wants* PO to happen is pretty crazy, in my opinion. Anyone wanting PO to happen would be fine with the death of billions humans in the worst case. Overshoot or not, that is not acceptable. I can feel a sense of superiority from people who look down on 'cornucopians'. As if they are less of human beings and it's fine for them to die. Anyone who wants human beings to, again, live in balance with the earth has got it right, in my opinion. Without balance, everything will end someday. But wouldn't it be great if the world right now, would be balanced? I mean, sure there are billions of people who live terrible lives compared to ours, but would they rather be dead than live crappy?

I care nothing about the earth. The earth doesn't even know we are here. The time humans live the earth is, in earth-time, about a second or so. The earth can't be 'polluted'. 'Polluted' just refers to livability of the earth for humans. Everything certain people say what 'harms the earth', just means 'harms the conditions under which humans have to live'. The earth is fine. Fine before we came, it's fine right now, and will be fine after we leave.

I do care about the people close to me. And therefor, i do not want PO to happen. I'm hooked on this life. :P
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Re: Peak oil: Do you want it to occur?

Unread postby EnergyUnlimited » Fri 28 Dec 2007, 08:05:03

Tanada wrote: A lot of people have not learned this lesson and will not understand why they can not have what they want when they want it and as often as they want it. That is going to make for some incredibly painful times for many modern people, and I hope they don't loose controll to the point of starting resource wars and/or nuclear genocide wars.

...and even if they do [start these wars], they are not going to secure what they want anyway...
They will end up with less in fact.
I am one of those who voted for PO.
It is important to end our hubristic, consumerist culture.
As it seems impossible to get there by design, our only hope is in default...
Few generations will certainly suffer, but overall long term effect will be all but good.
We are not using our resources wise, so we are likely to be better off without these.

If you wont to hurt an idiot, you should give him a freedom... or money... or cheap energy etc.
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Re: Peak oil: Do you want it to occur?

Unread postby EnergyUnlimited » Fri 28 Dec 2007, 08:43:20

bl00k wrote:Anyone wanting PO to happen would be fine with the death of billions humans in the worst case. Overshoot or not, that is not acceptable.

Fortunately for all of us Mother Nature doesn't give a slightest damn about acceptability (or lack of it) of various sets of modern man's hubris.
In long term these are the best news for overall prospect of humankind.
I can feel a sense of superiority from people who look down on 'cornucopians'. As if they are less of human beings and it's fine for them to die.

That is correct observation.
IMO cornucopians are lower forms of human life and they are heading to extinction.
All due to their hubris and overall shortsightedness and stupidity.
They have only themselves to blame for this sad state of affairs.
They are those who are planting a wind...

Anyone who wants human beings to, again, live in balance with the earth has got it right, in my opinion. Without balance, everything will end someday.

Correct.
But wouldn't it be great if the world right now, would be balanced?

It would be... but I don't see it.
I mean, sure there are billions of people who live terrible lives compared to ours, but would they rather be dead than live crappy?

Dieoff will affect most, if not all, of nations, not only so called brown peoples.
However it will take different flavours here and there...


I care nothing about the earth. The earth doesn't even know we are here.

Neither Earth does care about you...
Anyway that statement is a paramount of man's stupidity and shortsightedness.
This view will ensure ruin of all.
The earth can't be 'polluted'.

Nonsense.
'Polluted' just refers to livability of the earth for humans.

More nonsense.
Everything certain people say what 'harms the earth', just means 'harms the conditions under which humans have to live'.

Even more nonsense.
It harms overall life support system, essential for humans and non-humans.
The earth is fine. Fine before we came, it's fine right now, and will be fine after we leave.

Earth will be fine, but thanks to PO and overall peak FF there is a good chance that peoples will continue inhabiting it for much longer then would be possible otherwise.
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Re: Peak oil: Do you want it to occur?

Unread postby Andrew_S » Fri 28 Dec 2007, 09:49:06

bl00k wrote:I care nothing about the earth. The earth doesn't even know we are here. The time humans live the earth is, in earth-time, about a second or so. The earth can't be 'polluted'. 'Polluted' just refers to livability of the earth for humans. Everything certain people say what 'harms the earth', just means 'harms the conditions under which humans have to live'. The earth is fine. Fine before we came, it's fine right now, and will be fine after we leave.
Taking a very long-term, geological scale view, this is a good way to put it.
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Re: Peak oil: Do you want it to occur?

Unread postby whereagles » Fri 28 Dec 2007, 11:05:39

Lighthouse wrote:why would anyone want peakoil to happen?


maybe because then we don't wan't to trigger the methane hydride gun?
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Re: Peak oil: Do you want it to occur?

Unread postby Snowstorm » Fri 28 Dec 2007, 11:47:29

I voted yes. Why? Because as bad as PO happening will be, it will be better than PO not happening, we'd hit another natural limit eventually, but the longer the growth economy goes on the worse the result will be. More global warming, more depletion of the carrying capacity of the land, etc. No amount of trying will make growth and the consumer economy sustainable, where our energy can make a difference if enough people are involved is softening the impacts of the decline, a la David Holmgren's book.
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Re: Peak oil: Do you want it to occur?

Unread postby Concerned » Fri 28 Dec 2007, 12:13:27

I voted yes.

We have the technology and the wherewithal to change.

- We can use solar and other alternatives like wind. Microwave technology from space would be amazing.
- We can use modern safer nuclear reactor designs as well as the breeder reactors they are working on making commercially viable.
- We can work less hours like the French do and hunter gatherers of old did.
- We can recycle and build things so that they last and not simply throw away to be replaced every 5 years.
- We can share this rich sustainable life with all mankind. e.g. nano solar is now cost competitive with coal. When it scales up it will provide clean energy for all humanity.

What can we do collectively if we stop breeding and move our military budgets to cutting edge energy technology?

You can take the pessimistic view or the optimistic view. I think humans will change in ways that will surprise people. Sure it might take a few wars, bird flu and population reduction (die off) but I can see a better world. Mind you I could also see a much worse world but you got to hope for the best, it's not like the current world situation is all peachy.
"Once the game is over, the king and the pawn go back in the same box."
-Italian Proverb
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Re: Peak oil: Do you want it to occur?

Unread postby Concerned » Fri 28 Dec 2007, 12:35:15

whereagles wrote:
Lighthouse wrote:why would anyone want peakoil to happen?


maybe because then we don't wan't to trigger the methane hydride gun?


I think Japan is set to start pulling on that trigger :)

There was a story going around the other day about Japan mining the ocean for them.
"Once the game is over, the king and the pawn go back in the same box."
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Re: Peak oil: Do you want it to occur?

Unread postby nutmeg » Fri 28 Dec 2007, 13:44:35

I want peak oil to happen because I can't stand the sight of the useless eaters any more. I want to see a global die-off and/or kill-off and I don't care if I am one of the ones who dies or is killed. I'll make my best effort to survive it, if for no other reason than to see the useless eaters get their comeuppance and dance on the graves of billions and enjoy a massively less populated planet.

Remember the old poster with the two vultures, and one of them says, "Patience my ass . . . I'm going to kill something."
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Re: Peak oil: Do you want it to occur?

Unread postby jeezlouise » Fri 28 Dec 2007, 14:00:21

Oil-Finder: I think this is a BS question. Oil production will peak sooner or later (or already has) regardless of what we want. I get the feeling that what you really meant to ask was:

"Do you want to see the violent destruction of civilization within your lifetime so you can participate in it, because you are a minsanthropic doombat?"

Personally, to that, I'd have to say no. But there are plenty of non-doomers on this board who will answer your original question with a "yes" because they'd rather get whatever ill effects of the production backslide over with now, rather than put it off until the world's population is even larger and, as such, the total suffering might be greater.
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Re: Peak oil: Do you want it to occur?

Unread postby Pixie » Fri 28 Dec 2007, 16:19:56

Lighthouse wrote:why would anyone want peakoil to happen? Just think at all the hardship which will come when we reach the peak.
..


If oil were to not peak, our numbers and consumption would eventually be curtailed by some form of pollution, which would permanently poison our habitat.

If an organism expands beyond its carrying capacity, it will eventually either consume itself into starvation, or shit itself into toxic overload. This being the choice, I prefer the former.
Just another tofu-munching bike-riding Rambo(/Rambette)
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Re: Peak oil: Do you want it to occur?

Unread postby bl00k » Fri 28 Dec 2007, 17:30:36

EnergyUnlimited wrote:Neither Earth does care about you...
Anyway that statement is a paramount of man's stupidity and shortsightedness.
This view will ensure ruin of all.

That's right, the Earth doesn't care about me, and i'm fine with that. The Earth is what it is.
Nonsense.

Definition of pollution:
undesirable state of the natural environment being contaminated with harmful substances as a consequence of human activities

'Undesirable'. By whom? Human beings. Th Earth can't be polluted. We see certain things as 'pollution', we call it pollution because it harms the condition of the Earth as we like to see it because that specific condition is best for us to live in/survive.

It harms overall life support system, essential for humans and non-humans.

Exactly, 'life support system'. The thing that's essential for humans and non-humans. NOT essential for Earth to exist.

Earth will be fine, but thanks to PO and overall peak FF there is a good chance that peoples will continue inhabiting it for much longer then would be possible otherwise.

Maybe, i don't know.
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Re: Peak oil: Do you want it to occur?

Unread postby Twilight » Fri 28 Dec 2007, 17:39:35

I didn't want the wheels to skid.
I didn't want the airbag to deploy.
I didn't want the blood on my face.

But I was better off that way than with my foot on the gas a little bit longer.

Peak oil only looks bad until you consider the alternative.

I did not want either. But I hope the brake does enough all the same.
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