[Jenab6]

And I plan on planting even more trees this spring, if possible. Life is miraculous, WHY do we expend so much energy destroying it?

Because all of feel entitled to evaluate the relative worth of different living things, and because energy resource depletion has put all of us into an Overcrowded Lifeboat scenario. Somebody has got to become shark food, but who should it be? That's obviously the question in most wars, but even if regarding a decision of whether to clearcut a stretch of forest, that really is still the question.

Among people, there are better and worse. Not only in terms of character, but also in terms of sheer "animal" quality. In the sense that strong is better than weak, or that smart is better than stupid, or that dexterous is better than clumsy, or that more stamina is better than less. And is beauty entirely in the eye of the beholder? No. It is, in part, an indication of health, and poor health isn't a matter of opinion.

But those inferior ones have been empowered to make, or to take part in making, decisions. They will mostly select themselves for survival, and if their betters must become shark food in order for them to live another week, then so be it, they will think.

And that's unfortunate, since inferior people, being stupid, habitually unalert, inclined to abdicate their social responsibilities to institutions, lazy, immoral, physically weak, clumsy, easily fatigued, loaded with heritable defects, and, to sum it all up, unable to survive for long without the bounty and the technical props of the oil era, will rather they lived another short while by sacrificing those of us who could have lived on Earth perpetually without the aforementioned bounty and technical props.

Most humans are mediocrities. When mediocrities make the choices, or determine them through market forces, the bulge in the human quality bell curve tends to travel worseward over time. Money transfers the measure of man from his genes to his bank accounts, and during the period of eugenic neglect, entropy degrades the biological character of democratic, economic men. The masses cannot govern society well, and they should never have been allowed to try. Money should never have become the measure of men, should never have become the primary goal for which men strived, should never have become the determiner of their influence. Mass democracy and capitalism were both evolutionary blunders, subject to the usual harsh and massive corrections when fossil energy declines and as nature's laws consequently reassert their suzerainty.

Jerry Abbott

[Jenab6]

And I plan on planting even more trees this spring, if possible. Life is miraculous, WHY do we expend so much energy destroying it?

Because all of feel entitled to evaluate the relative worth of different living things, and because energy resource depletion has put all of us into an Overcrowded Lifeboat scenario. Somebody has got to become shark food, but who should it be? That's obviously the question in most wars, but even if regarding a decision of whether to clearcut a stretch of forest, that really is still the question.

Among people, there are better and worse. Not only in terms of character, but also in terms of sheer "animal" quality. In the sense that strong is better than weak, or that smart is better than stupid, or that dexterous is better than clumsy, or that more stamina is better than less. And is beauty entirely in the eye of the beholder? No. It is, in part, an indication of health, and poor health isn't a matter of opinion.

But those inferior ones have been empowered to make, or to take part in making, decisions. They will mostly select themselves for survival, and if their betters must become shark food in order for them to live another week, then so be it, they will think.

And that's unfortunate, since inferior people, being stupid, habitually unalert, inclined to abdicate their social responsibilities to institutions, lazy, immoral, physically weak, clumsy, easily fatigued, loaded with heritable defects, and, to sum it all up, unable to survive for long without the bounty and the technical props of the oil era, will rather they lived another short while by sacrificing those of us who could have lived on Earth perpetually without the aforementioned bounty and technical props.

Most humans are mediocrities. When mediocrities make the choices, or determine them through market forces, the bulge in the human quality bell curve tends to travel worseward over time. Money transfers the measure of man from his genes to his bank accounts, and during the period of eugenic neglect, entropy degrades the biological character of democratic, economic men.

The masses cannot govern society well, and they should never have been allowed to try. Money should never have become the measure of men, should never have become the primary goal for which men strived, should never have become the determiner of their influence. Mass democracy and capitalism were both evolutionary blunders, subject to the usual harsh and massive corrections when fossil energy declines and as nature's laws consequently reassert their suzerainty.

Jerry Abbott

[Jenab6]

Sorry for the double post. I went back to make a minor correction (a paragraph break), and the first copy was sent anyway. I'd delete the first copy if I could, but I'm denied that posting function. Would a moderator get rid of the first copy of that double post please? (And after that, this post can go as well.)

Jerry Abbott

[John_A]

Come on you goofs.

The question (in case I need to rephrase) is:

When will PO become a clarion cal to do more than tap on some message board?

6 years and counting....and in the new age of rapidly increasing US oil production...wither went the prophets.....?

[Pops]

Good bump.

Yep the US has added a million bopd and sent it to europe to replace the peaked and quickly dwindling N Sea. Meanwhile the rest of the world is flat for 8 years. a couple MMbopd of LTO is a drop in the bucket.

Let's look at a few predictions, from this thread JD said:

Pops, I believe KTH is referring to the fact that oil production peaked almost 3 years ago, in May 2005:

PO has not measured up to the hype. It hasn't even caused a recession, let alone a disaster. Clearly there is something wrong with peak oil theory.

Remember that was in late '07, miles driven had already begun to fall in the US and the Lesser Depression was just around the corner.

Yergan said in Sept '07:
$80 is not supported by the fundamentals unless there is a war with Iran or a hurricane.
$85 or higher this year
Next year we will see a build up of supply
http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232?video=5 ... |MW|video4


And then the EIA:

AEO2007—the average world crude oil price declines slowly in real terms (2005 dollars), from a 2006 aver-age of more than $69 per barrel ($11.56 per million Btu) to just under $50 per barrel ($8.30 per million Btu) in 2014 as new supplies enter the market, then rises slowly to about $59 per barrel ($9.89 per million Btu) in 2030

IEA (Briol presentation) did better:

We know of approved projects around the world that will bring 25 mb/d by 2015 (note that this is still less than the 37.5 mb/d actually required). If the supply turns out to be less than this, we are in serious trouble. If these projects do not come online, the wheels will fall off our energy system.

Al Husseni said:

Sadad al-Huseini says that global production has reached its maximum sustainable plateau and that output will start to fall within 15 years, by which time the world’s oil resources will be “very severely depleted”.

http://www.davidstrahan.com/blog/?p=67

This is from "energyintel via TOD


That's all I have time for now...

[ROCKMAN]

"...wither went the prophets.....?" Some of us are sitting here looking at the numbers' Global oil consumption bill 2003: $970 billion/yr. Global oil consumption bill 2013: $2.99 TRILLION/yr.

So yes...I bear my back for the whip for so foolishly predicting harsh financial times ahead for the world as the affects of oil production peaking take hold. How could I have been so wrong? LOL.

Fortunately I've never predicted future oil production rates...such a fools game IMHO. I just stuck with the anticipation of energy cost rising as the gap between production and economic growth widened. Seems as though I'm pretty darn good at doing that. LOL.

[Pops]

The correct answer in this thread was by PeddelingFaster who said 9/11 was the PO Pearl Harbor.

we did have quite a Pearl Harbor event. one is enough, it served its purpose. most of the American and Canadian citizenry are so Shocked & Awed that they dare not publicly discuss any aspect of the day, besides the official Bubble Chimp (Bush) version of events.

In fact it was wondering about the motivation behind 9/11 that brought me to start thinking about PO. My mistake in starting so many of these types of threads has always been in not understanding that people in general don't seem to have the same concerns I do - we do, about the problems associated with losing access to the main driver of the global economy. I keep expecting a groundswell jof concern but keep getting OilInc press releases.

I'm not sure if it's because we humans have a collectively short memory and most simply have no idea of what life was like before the I.C.E.-Age. For that matter, haven't there always been smart phones, Facebook and Cyber Monday? Or it's just that the techno-lullaby is just so hypnotising we can't imagine anything knocking it off key: the lights always come on, the car always starts, the furnace always kicks in. We are simply certain "they" will think of something so we don't concern ourselves, can't concern ourselves, in fact the thought is too massive to consider, so we don't.

One thing apparent in this thread is lots of folks were correctly thinking major impacts soon but also that major systemic changes would result. Take this from MC2:

Odds are, we will enter a deflationary spiral in the next two years that will effectively shut down the global economy and force everyone to a new system of exchange.

We did have deflation (and maybe still do hidden under the TARPS), the economy did shut down, but what was the response? Not a "new system of exchange" but a 5 year (and counting) rescuing of the perpetrators of the old system. Not just rescuing but providing the perpetutors with a windfall; all three US equity indexes have hit all time highs at the same time median incomes are falling - in fact falling more during the "recovery" than during the recession.

There may be a new system someday but the old one is dug in like a momma tick and won't come out easy, that's what I still can't get through my thick skull.

I had my differences with Monte but I will credit him with adding an important phrase to my personal vocabulary: asset inertia. The "System" however you describe it, is self perpetuating in the extreme because people will do anything to continue in the manner they've become accustomed. Name your boogieman: hyper-inflation, Marxist Revolution, deflationary spiral, universal access to health care (LOL): are people will fight tooth and nail to resist change, sometimes against their best interest because the System includes everyone, not just the owners.

[JV153]

Well, the New York World Trade Center was designed by Yimoru Yamasaki. So was Pruitt-Igoe and the US Federal Reserve Bank in Richmond.

I hate the techno lullaby - it's getting bad, people walking around with their iPads and they can't see a bicycle approaching with a good LED at 3 meters.

Seeing some signs of a deflationary spiral - mostly because unemployment in Europe has gone through the roof.

[Newfie]

Pops,

I think you are talking about generational normalcy or some such label.

I believe that we define "normal" by what our world looked like somewhere around puberty. At that point we kind of get ossified in our thinking. As INDIVIDUALS that is.

As a CULTURE it is different. Old generations die and take their "normal" with them. New generations come along with a "new normal." We oldies are shocked at how the world changed, without realizing how much the world changed for our parents and grand parents.

It is one of Western Cultures design flaws.

[vision-master]

So when is the PO Pearl Harbor?

Won't happen as new energy sources will be revealed to avert calamity. You cee, it's all about commerce.

[basil_hayden]

So when is the PO Pearl Harbor?

Won't happen as new energy sources will be revealed to avert calamity. You cee, it's all about commerce.

"I'm gonna Nuke/Solar/LENR Peak Oil outta my hair!
I'm gonna Nuke/Solar/LENR Peak Oil outta my hair!"

Thanks Nellie Forbush, we'll call ya if we need ya, even if we know you won't be there then.

[Timo]

On my own pesonal note, i have a LOT less concern about any PO Pearl Harbor than an AGW Pearl Harbor, which i think is also A LOT more likely than one resulting from PO. The way i see it, peak oil is damned good thing because it forestalls and reduces the root causes of human-caused climate change. If energy demand outpaces energy production, so be it. It will affect BAU, but life will go on for the world at large. We'll adapt to the new economic norms of PO. The same can't be said if temps rise by 2-6 C over the next century, like the best of the best climate scientists are predicting. We clearly won't stop burning FFs until we run out, and IMO, the sooner we run out and return to life within our means, the better. Will it be pretty? Hell no! Actually, for billions of people it will be a living hell, but life on the planet will continue. PO is not the end ot the world. So, i'll flip the question. When is the AGW Pearl Harbor?

[basil_hayden]

On my own pesonal note, i have a LOT less concern about any PO Pearl Harbor than an AGW Pearl Harbor, which i think is also A LOT more likely than one resulting from PO. The way i see it, peak oil is damned good thing because it forestalls and reduces the root causes of human-caused climate change. If energy demand outpaces energy production, so be it. It will affect BAU, but life will go on for the world at large. We'll adapt to the new economic norms of PO. The same can't be said if temps rise by 2-6 C over the next century, like the best of the best climate scientists are predicting. We clearly won't stop burning FFs until we run out, and IMO, the sooner we run out and return to life within our means, the better. Will it be pretty? Hell no! Actually, for billions of people it will be a living hell, but life on the planet will continue. PO is not the end ot the world. So, i'll flip the question. When is the AGW Pearl Harbor?

The AGW Pearl Harbor begins about ten minutes into the first cold winter after the second quartile of petroleum depletion occurs because that'll be when we burn everything that's not fossil fuel.

[John_A]

The AGW Pearl Harbor begins about ten minutes into the first cold winter after the second quartile of petroleum depletion occurs because that'll be when we burn everything that's not fossil fuel.

Good thing that most folks don't generally worry about AGW generating cold winters, instead delivering the fine tropical experience many humans seek out on vacation time as they flee those cold spots. So some certainly won't mind their locale being turned into something to their liking, might hurt the economy if they aren't flying down to the Caribbean and whatnot though. As far as petroleum depletion, after a century and a half of that, if there is one thing humans have proven, it is that the issue on what we are going to do with the next 6 trillion barrels is still in question. We have enough to run BAU at approximately BAU prices for at least this century, the hope being that by the end of it we will all be using other stuff because really, we all know better, and our liquid fuels habit is really a dirty one, and we should change our behavior and be done with this little episode in human history already.

[Strummer]

delivering the fine tropical experience

Yep.

[Subjectivist]

On my own pesonal note, i have a LOT less concern about any PO Pearl Harbor than an AGW Pearl Harbor, which i think is also A LOT more likely than one resulting from PO. The way i see it, peak oil is damned good thing because it forestalls and reduces the root causes of human-caused climate change. If energy demand outpaces energy production, so be it. It will affect BAU, but life will go on for the world at large. We'll adapt to the new economic norms of PO. The same can't be said if temps rise by 2-6 C over the next century, like the best of the best climate scientists are predicting. We clearly won't stop burning FFs until we run out, and IMO, the sooner we run out and return to life within our means, the better. Will it be pretty? Hell no! Actually, for billions of people it will be a living hell, but life on the planet will continue. PO is not the end ot the world. So, i'll flip the question. When is the AGW Pearl Harbor?

The AGW Pearl Harbor begins about ten minutes into the first cold winter after the second quartile of petroleum depletion occurs because that'll be when we burn everything that's not fossil fuel.

If you are worried about cold winters there is plenty of coal left for furnaces to keep people warm.

[onlooker]

Perhaps the peak oil Pearl Harbor, will be when the Reserves of OPEC are proven definitively to be the gross exaggeration they have been suspected to be. Then investors and governments might finally realize the Age of Oil is coming to an end.

[ROCKMAN]

A blast from the past! Again Sub appears nostalgic. LOL. or was it just the 75th anniversary that brought it to mind? But let's try this angle: the PH attack wasn't a bad day...it was GREAT day. All depends on whose frame of reference one uses. So maybe PO will reduce the likelihood of an AGW PH.

OTOH one can also conclude the PH attack was a terribly bad day for the Japanese: it awoken the sleeping giant that eventually crushed their country. In the case of PO (and PNG) in those enertgy sources fail to satisfy global energy dermand coal becomes the dominant energy source since those reserves are so huge.

Or maybe a AGW PH saves us from a PO PH: climate change becomes so severe it damages agriculture so much we have a massive global dieoff of the population and thus greatly reduces the consumption of all fossil fuels.

Every war has a winner and loser. But eventually the winner may not end up in as good a place as the lower eventually reaches.

[Subjectivist]

A blast from the past! Again Sub appears nostalgic. LOL. or was it just the 75th anniversary that brought it to mind? But let's try this angle: the PH attack wasn't a bad day...it was GREAT day. All depends on whose frame of reference one uses. So maybe PO will reduce the likelihood of an AGW PH.

OTOH one can also conclude the PH attack was a terribly bad day for the Japanese: it awoken the sleeping giant that eventually crushed their country. In the case of PO (and PNG) in those enertgy sources fail to satisfy global energy dermand coal becomes the dominant energy source since those reserves are so huge.

Or maybe a AGW PH saves us from a PO PH: climate change becomes so severe it damages agriculture so much we have a massive global dieoff of the population and thus greatly reduces the consumption of all fossil fuels.

Every war has a winner and loser. But eventually the winner may not end up in as good a place as the lower eventually reaches.

Winter always makes me nostalgic, but this one just came up in my feed lol.

In this case the question is, will we ever get the shock event that helps Joe6P understand peak resources? Or will too many distractions keep people confused forever?

[ROCKMAN]

You've seen J6P respond to energy shock events in the past. You ever been impressed? LOL. And then once the shock had past seen him continuing to focus on the problem? Doubly unimpressed, eh? LOL. Many of our problems are rooted in human nature. Figure out how to geneticly modify it and we might have a chance.

But I do like the Pear Harbor anology much more the "collapse", "Armageddon ", etc. Much easier to visualize those dynamics at play.